Marita Growing Thunder's aunt taught her how to make dresses. She should still be here today.

Tearing up while she read a letter for another Indigenous woman, Growing Thunder remembered her aunt’s life and the last moment she saw her. She often thinks about that last moment, she said, because she never wants to forget her aunt as others have.

Growing Thunder read this letter at an Indigenous Feminisms event at the University of Washington Intellectual House, an event space on campus dedicated to increasing Native student success at UW.

Dian Million, associate professor of American Indian studies at UW, and Luana Ross, professor of gender, women and sexuality studies at UW, help plan the Indigenous Feminisms series. This series is intended to elevate the voices of Indigenous women because the lives of those women are silenced, said Casey Wynecoop, assistant director of the Intellectual House. Growing Thunder spoke at the latest event, which was about the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) movement.

This movement is a response to raise awareness of an issue colonial governments do not often acknowledge.

MMIW first emerged in Canada to address the lack of attention and action on missing and murdered Indigenous women. Indigenous women experience disproportionately high levels of violence in their communities, and it affects many Native families across the United States and Canada. This movement is a response to raise awareness of an issue colonial governments do not often acknowledge.

“They don’t know our critical issues, you know what I’m saying?” said Million. “They have no idea what are the effects of these hundreds of years of oppression on our families.”

Two of Growing Thunder’s aunts were murdered. She said her grandfather’s sister was killed by a highway patrolman while driving and her mother’s sister was killed by her own husband.

At first Growing Thunder felt isolated because of what happened to her family. Then she learned about the MMIW movement and realized hers is one of many Native families who have lost a beloved female relative to violence or an unknown fate.

“Everyone has been affected by this,” said Ross about the prevalence of this issue in Native communities. Ross and Professor Daniel Hart, co-directors of the Native Voices Indigenous filmmaking program at UW, created the film “Threads of Survivance” about Growing Thunder, a member of the Fort Peck Sioux Tribe who uses art to raise awareness for MMIW.

Growing Thunder felt marked by the absence of loved ones. But she found that expressing herself through sewing, her art, helped her communicate what she could not explain in words.

“I speak through my art form,” said Growing Thunder.

This film documented Growing Thunder’s activism, including a project she started called Save Our Sisters. For this project, she sews ribbon dresses and ribbon skirts to honor Native women who are missing or murdered in the United States and Canada.

Ribbon skirts Growing Thunder sewed while in high school are on display. One skirt was made in response to the “White Power” shirts worn by some of her Polson High School classmates. Photo by Lyndsey Brolini

She sewed every day her senior year of high school and continues her work in college at the University of Montana.

Growing Thunder wore these dresses to Polson High School on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana despite pushback from students, some of whom one day wore shirts that said “White Power.” Adversity from her peers did not deter her. She made a purple ribbon skirt in response to the shirts.

Growing Thunder sewed more than 160 dresses in high school, but she does not focus on the numbers in her work because these women are more than just a number to her, she said.

A community databaseAnnita Lucchesi, a Ph.D. student at University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada, agreed that numbers do not show the full scope of missing and murdered Indigenous women. Numbers do not account for all the cases that go unreported or misreported.

However, the numbers do affirm the issue’s existence, so Lucchesi created a database in 2015 of missing and murdered Indigenous women in the United States and Canada as part of her dissertation on MMIW. There are more than 2,200 entries now.

The numbers give a more compelling argument for what Native people already know and opens the issue up to a wider audience.

There is no other dataset that gathers information on missing and murdered Native women. There is simply not enough information on MMIW, so this lack of data motivated Lucchesi’s work.

For her database, Lucchesi gathers names, ages, dates of birth, tribes, when and where the events happened, race and conviction status of the perpetrators, the sources of data and keywords indicating the nature of the person’s life (such as whether they were in foster care or were sex workers). For Lucchesi, documents and numbers make the issue more real and pressing.

“There’s things we know anecdotally that we’re actually able to prove with the numbers in the database,” Lucchesi said.

The numbers give a more compelling argument for what Native people already know and opens the issue up to a wider audience.

Being a survivor of violence herself, Lucchesi felt a personal connection to MMIW. She could have been one of those women. One of her former students from Blackfeet Community College went missing recently as well, so Lucchesi entered her name into the database.

“It is definitely hard to enter someone you know,” Lucchesi said.

Lucchesi will continue her database as long as it is needed. It has crossed her mind that she could be doing this 50 years from now with a grandkid on her lap. While she hopes that the current rates of missing and murdered Indigenous women do not continue, her hopes are not high.

Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota introduced Savannah’s Act in October to address the alarming rate of missing and murdered Native women and girls in the United States. The bill requires annual reports and improved access to law enforcement databases for tribes so they have the resources needed to investigate the violence and missing persons cases of their own people.

“Tribal law enforcement agencies need better access to federal databases and criminal justice systems to solve crimes and develop prevention strategies,” Heitkamp said. Additionally, the act requires the attorney general, the Department of the Interior and the Department of Health and Human Services to consult with tribes on creating a standard response to missing and murdered Native American cases.

“Tribes themselves need some reporting and healing,” said Carolyn DeFord, a Puyallup tribal member. “Indians know how to help Indians best.”

She also says that the federal government needs to take action on MMIW as well. Tribes currently do not have the resources they need.

DeFord is another woman personally affected by MMIW. Her mother went missing 18 years ago.

DeFord felt like it was written on her forehead that her mother was missing. It became her identity. She thought people had to know why she was such a mess, that she had to give an explanation for her sadness.

DeFord was frustrated with the police when her mother went missing. Police asked her if she was sure her mother was missing. “OK … Are you sure she’s missing?” was the officer’s response to DeFord. When she said she wanted to file a report for a missing person, the police officer sighed.

“That was a big wake-up call,” DeFord said. “They’re not gonna do anything. Getting law enforcement to take it seriously is hard.”

A structure of violenceThe issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women was first brought to public awareness in Canada. When the nature of boarding schools was exposed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the rate of missing and murdered Indigenous women was also unearthed. However, this did not make the issue a priority for everyone.

Settler colonialism has always ignored Native women’s deaths.

MMIW is a result of colonial structures, a way to make Native people invisible, according to Million. Settler colonialism has always ignored Native women’s deaths. This issue is just one of many that has emerged because of colonial governments.

“It’s a structure of violence,” said Million, something built into society.

The U.S. Justice Department filed charges on only half the murder cases in Indian Country (the legal term the U.S. government uses to refer to Native lands) and failed to prosecute almost two-thirds of sexual assault cases against Native women in 2011. In contrast, an average of 64 percent of homicide cases end in an arrest or identifying the culprit.

DeFord believes the issue needs to be a community effort. This includes holding police accountable for not taking cases concerning Native women more seriously, even going to the police station with signs and protesting, and supporting victims of domestic violence so they do not go missing or be murdered in the first place.

DeFord created a Facebook page called Missing and Murdered Native Americans in honor of her mother to support other families. Her work includes sharing missing persons posters, reaching out to families and contacting hotels and motels to notify them of a missing person who may come through.

Growing Thunder’s aunt was a victim of domestic violence, having been killed by her own husband. Both Growing Thunder and DeFord wish to support the families of victims because of their experiences.

Growing Thunder aims to make her project Save Our Sisters into a nonprofit that can financially support these families. Some families cannot afford a funeral or even retrieving the body of their loved one, so the nonprofit would help fund these sorts of costs.

Community and individual efforts like these are needed because almost all Native families are affected by MMIW in some way. Almost everyone Growing Thunder met is affected by the issue. Being only 18 years old, she experienced tragedy at a young age and hopes future Native women do not have to experience as much violence in their families. That is why she, Deford, Lucchesi and others put so much of themselves into raising MMIW awareness.

“I don’t want any other people to suffer,” Growing Thunder said. “I want to celebrate the lives of these women, they deserve to be recognized.”